[-empyre-] Fwd: Week Four with Laura Cinti, Grégory Lasserre, and Anaïs met den Ancxt

[Murat Nemet-Nejat]

Hi Laura,

"A large part of my research investigated how we tap into processes that
escape us.  I was concerned with how biotechnology has the potential to
visualise invisible processes and the importance for artists working with
biological matter (such as bio artists) to take steps in acquiring such
insights to avoid producing anthropomorphic and iconic constructions and
perhaps invite a deeper appreciation of the living through art.  My
findings indicated that artists whose works attempt to elicit an
understanding of plants using technological interfaces or mediations were
often found to obfuscate our understanding of plants. For example, using
electrodes to extract data from plants opens up questions of authentication
in terms of external interference (i.e. as a result of human movements near
the sensors) or issues of incompatibility of such sensors to extract
electrophysiological signals in plants.  Are these interfaces measurements
originating from human movements? Are the plants subservient to a
conceptual role? If so, does this then reverse plant’s perspective into
that of our own returning us to the anthropomorphic?"


The above passage encapsulates beautifully, from my point of view, the
issues we have been discussing the last few weeks and I tried to expand on
using the term "extra-terrestial." What should the point of contact of
codes be in order not to distort the object we are observing, including
altering it in the process of observing.

Let us continue the discussion.

Ciao,

Murat

On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 7:19 AM, laura cinti <laura at c-lab.co.uk> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> Hi,
>
> I have been looking forward to this discussion on ‘Plant and New Media’.
> Thank you Natasha for the invitation to join in.  I am a research-based
> artists working with biology and much of my art practice has involved
> working with living plants.
>
> Since plants (for the most part) don’t behave in ways we recognise as
> sensorial, I began my PhD research exploring interactive experiences
> between plants and humans. This involved looking at scientific
> possibilities of having living (non-specialised) plants respond directly
> and visibly to touch. At the time there was a fascinating experiment being
> conducted at the institute where I was based involving engineered magnetic
> nanoparticles used as ‘smart drug delivery systems’ to guide magnetically
> tagged stem cells to damaged tissue. These cells were transported inside
> living organisms using an external magnet outside the body.  By
> assimilating this technique I devised a strategy using these same
> nanoparticles as a way of generating interactive motion in living plants (a
> video of  Nanomagnetic Plants <https://vimeo.com/38638223> can be seen
> here). While developing these plants, the focus of my research shifted as I
> became increasingly fascinated by scientific findings revealing plants’
> perceptual qualities and the extent these findings conflicted with our
> ordinary experiences of plants.  Their sensorial features frequently
> appeared invisible without the aid of an interface (i.e. imaging devices,
> reporter genes or electrodes).  Thus my PhD research, titled The
> Sensorial Invisibility of Plants, An Interdisciplinary Inquiry through Bio
> Art and Plant Neurobiology <http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1310152/>, focused
> on connecting our ordinary experiences of plants with scientific findings
> and accounted for two ways of perceiving plants - one being the ‘scientific
> image’ and the other how we normally experience plants (the ‘subjective
> image’).
>
> The absence of rapid responsive behaviours in plants have relegated them
> as being devoid of sensation -  an understanding that can be traced back to
> Aristotelian philosophy (i.e. De Anima/On the Soul). Aristotle argued that
> for sensorial qualities to exist in living organisms, motion is required.
> Even today, motion is a key attribute for qualifying life with behaviour or
> intelligence.  However, the scientific image of plants has shown a very
> different scenario demonstrating the extent plants respond to their
> environment and the disparities between plants’ internal
> information-processing mechanisms in relation to their external
> morphological adaptations. For instance, plants perceive and respond to
> touch and although such reactions are not directly visible, they are
> internalised and result in gradual morphological and growth adaptations. In
> another example, touch sensitive genes identified in controlled experiments
> show how plant’s physiology changes in response to touch. The existence of
> touch-responsive genes and the speed of changes in these expressions shows
> the capacity of plants for rapid interaction with touch. In transgenic
> plants it has been showed that wind stimulus caused immediate reaction
> through luminescence. The speed of the response (light emission due to
> calcium elevation) was within milliseconds. Our ordinary experience of
> plants complicates this scenario as our perceptions do not correspond with
> their scientific depiction. Our ability to see these changes manifest at
> the level of the whole plant will take time as the genes will need to
> express proteins, cells divide and onwards, slowly adding the layers that
> alters growth into our field of perception. My research was focused on
> the emerging gap between the scientific image of plants as sensorial, the
> image of plants formed by our subjective experience and how we consolidate
> these views.
>
> In the scientific image, what is perceived or recognised is dependent on
> the interface - such as imaging instruments or biochemical reporters. While
> interfaces can be used to generate new features in living organisms, I want
> to expand on one of the following questions posed in this forum:
>
> How do technological mediations in new media plant art make perceptible
> the otherwise imperceptible (invisible or inaudible) nature of plant life,
> and how in the process do these experiments transform our understandings of
> plant life and behaviour?
>
> A large part of my research investigated how we tap into processes that
> escape us.  I was concerned with how biotechnology has the potential to
> visualise invisible processes and the importance for artists working with
> biological matter (such as bio artists) to take steps in acquiring such
> insights to avoid producing anthropomorphic and iconic constructions and
> perhaps invite a deeper appreciation of the living through art.  My
> findings indicated that artists whose works attempt to elicit an
> understanding of plants using technological interfaces or mediations were
> often found to obfuscate our understanding of plants. For example, using
> electrodes to extract data from plants opens up questions of authentication
> in terms of external interference (i.e. as a result of human movements near
> the sensors) or issues of incompatibility of such sensors to extract
> electrophysiological signals in plants.  Are these interfaces measurements
> originating from human movements? Are the plants subservient to a
> conceptual role? If so, does this then reverse plant’s perspective into
> that of our own returning us to the anthropomorphic?
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Laura
>
>
>
> On 22 June 2015 at 12:37, Patrick Keilty <p.keilty at utoronto.ca> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Great discussion heading into our final week of "Plant Art and New
>> Media"! Week four brings us three guest discussants, Laura Cinti,
>> Grégory Lasserre, and Anaïs met den Ancxt.
>>
>> Looking forward to continuing the conversation!
>>
>> Dr Laura Cinti is an research-based artist working with biology,
>> co-founder and co-director of C-LAB - a transdisciplinary bio art
>> collective and organisation. C-LAB has been invited to range of
>> international conferences, exhibitions and continues to contribute in
>> publications to broker discussions on the intersections of art and
>> science. Laura has been involved in art projects, exhibitions and
>> workshops with support from the European Commission, scientific
>> institutes, pharmaceutical companies, councils, universities, cultural
>> institutes and commercial partners. Laura has a PhD from UCL (Slade
>> School of Fine Art in interdisciplinary capacity with UCL Centre of
>> Biomedical Imaging), a Masters in Interactive Media: Critical Theory &
>> Practice (Distinction) from Goldsmiths College, University of London
>> and BA (Hons) Fine Art (First Class) from University of Hertfordshire.
>>
>> Scenocosme is a collaboration between Gregory Lasserre & Anais met den
>> Ancxt. Gregory Lasserre and Anais met den Ancxt are two artists
>> working together as a duo under the name Scenocosme. They work and
>> live in France. They develop the concept of interactivity in their
>> artworks by using multiple kinds of expression. They mix art and
>> digital technology in order to find substances of dreams, poetries,
>> sensitivities and delicacies. Their works come from possible
>> hybridizations between the living world and technology which meeting
>> points incite them to invent sensitive and poetic languages. They also
>> explore invisible relationships with our environment : they can feel
>> energetic variations of living beings. They design interactive
>> artworks, and choreographic collective performances, in which
>> spectators share extraordinary sensory experiences. Plants of their
>> artwork Akousmaflore react to the human touch by different sounds.
>> They use also water (Fluides), stones (Kymapetra) and wood (Ecorces;
>> Matières sensibles) as elements capable to generate tactile, visual
>> and sound sensory interactivity. Their artworks were presented in
>> several contemporary art and digital art spaces. Since 2004, they have
>> exhibited their interactive installation artworks at ZKM Karlsruhe
>> Centre for Art and Media (Germany), at Museum Art Gallery of Nova
>> Scotia (Canada), at Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh (USA), at Daejeon
>> Museum of Art (Korea), at Bòlit / Centre d’Art Contemporani (Girona)
>> and in many international biennals and festivals.
>> http://www.scenocosme.com/
>>
>>
>> Patrick Keilty
>> Assistant Professor
>> Faculty of Information
>> Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies
>> University of Toronto
>> http://www.patrickkeilty.com/
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>
>
>
> --
> Dr Laura Cinti
> Director of Artistic Engagement
> C-LAB
> http://c-lab.co.uk
> laura at c-lab.co.uk
>
> Twitter @c-labblurb <https://twitter.com/clabblurb> | Facebook
> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/C-Lab/243166795704064> | Vimeo
> <https://vimeo.com/user1654937>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Dr Laura Cinti
> Director of Artistic Engagement
> C-LAB
> http://c-lab.co.uk
> laura at c-lab.co.uk
>
> Twitter @c-labblurb <https://twitter.com/clabblurb> | Facebook
> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/C-Lab/243166795704064> | Vimeo
> <https://vimeo.com/user1654937>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
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